The fox stopped less than a meter away from him. She then began...purring and her nine tails, situated on her lower back, opened like a peacock's tail.
Lanius didn't make a move. He was sure that he was in danger...heck, his senses even screamed "danger" at the moment...yet he wanted to test something, so he stood his ground. He acted boldly on purpose, allowing the fox to charm him so he could know what happened.
She leaned forward, now being less than half a meter away from him. Lanius swallowed his saliva, pretending to look dumbfounded. The purring grew louder as she leaned forward. Her eyes widened, looking ecstatic.
"I'm sorry..." she whispered, before touching his face with her hands. A split second before she touched him, Lanius was sure that her voice was filled with bitterness, in contrast to her whole expression and body language.
"Ugh!" Lanius felt as if he was struck by lightning, along with a sharp nauseating feeling for mere seconds, like his blood pressure had rapidly dropped. The nausea instantly vanished, being replaced by two other fillings, pleasure and euphoria that flowed through his body along with the electric feeling.
"She tried to steal his soul?!" Lanius heard Freida shout inside his head. Her voice was full of shock, as she didn't expect that outcome. He then looked at the fox in front of him. Her head had titled back. A chirp left her throat, indicating that she was feeling the same as Lanius.
A few seconds later, she let go of his face whilst breathing heavily, causing Lanius to drop on the floor, temporarily stunned both by the charm and the feeling. The vastaya then vanished, stumbling away, into the woods. Lanius sat there for about ten minutes, breathing heavily as he waited for the charm to wear off.
"She...tried to suck out my soul?" he asked.
"Yeah, apparently she attempted to do such thing... Tho she failed, as I am bound on it."
"Trying to.... She attempted to do the same a week ago, tho you might have acted subconsciously back then." Lanius muttered.
He then got up, returning to the cabin, occasionally looking towards the direction that he saw the Vastaya vanish.
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"Haaa...haaaa" Ahri breathed heavily as she stopped, about a half kilometer away from the cabin.
She did it again.
She was overwhelmed by that feeling the first time she tried to suck the young man's soul out and for reasons even she did not understand, wished to experience it again. It made her feel strange...better.
It felt better than consuming souls. The young-looking vastaya leaned against a tree and exhaled loudly, seemingly exhausted. She looked towards the cabin's direction, as if she was trying to look straight through the trees and towards the young man.
"Huh...so I really can't steal his life. Oh well, that's just not that bad..." she mutter to herself. The feeling that she experienced then passed through her mind, causing her heart to beat faster.
"...Tho...Did he let me charm him?" she thought.
"Whatever... I think I might follow him for a bit longer..." a devious grin formed in her face and her tails then swept the tree's trunk with joy.
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The cabin's door opened and Lanius returned inside.
He moved towards the living room, where he found the family sitting by the fire. Altair and Casper sat around a small table, playing a Demacian version of chess and Yellina sat on a couch, petting their poro with her eyes closed.
Atlair did not take his eyes from the game as he greeted the young man.
"How's the night outside, boy?" he asked.
"It's a nice one. The wind stopped outside and the sky's beautiful." Lanius skipped on purpose the parts about taking with Freida and the encounter with the vastaya. He the sat down on a chair and spoke. "Could I have your attention?" he then asked.
Atlair and Casper stopped their game and turned towards him. Yellina opened her eyes and also looked at him, with her ears moving back with concern. Even the poro faced him. Lanius swallowed, before speaking.
" I owe you and value the fact that you found me and let me stay here for those days. I do not wish to be a burden further, and combined with the fact that I have some duties, I will leave you tomorrow morning." he said and looked at them.
"Boy, we told you before that you're not a burden to us. As for the "owing" part, you owe us nothing, since you helped and if you didn't, even then you wouldn't owe us." Altair spoke
" We did it, because it was the right thing. We would have done the same for everyone." Yellina added.
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"Fits perfectly, tho I still don't get why you don't want anything under the trench coat." Altair said to Lanius, both of them looking at the mirror. The very first thing that they did after they woke up was picking an outfit for Lanius as a parting gift.
"A young man like you, much more the Winter, cannot be roaming the lands without a proper attire." Originally the young man would have protested, as he felt like he had owed them too much, but these words caused him to remember that he still only wore the white bandages, black pants and plated boots, so he agreed.
"I got no reason to. My tribe, originating from Freljord, was resistant to cold, so we only wore coats or walked outside topless. If Men and women wore something under them, it was mostly cropped. Even the coats themselves were sometimes cropped or sleeveless." Lanius replied. He then looked at his reflection from top to bottom.
The young man had styled his silver hair into a simple braid that fell on his back. He had additionally covered the iced patch with a black bandage.
Altair had given him a black trench coat with fur on the shoulders and folded sleeves above the elbows. He had replaced the old, white bandages on his torso and arms with news, black ones. He kept the black pants and boots tho, as both had been gifts from his father and mother.
"You're sure that you don't want them?" Lanius asked again.
"Yeah boy, keep them." Altair reassured him.
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The farewells took quite some time. Lanius gave a gift to each of them. A Verhea pendant to Yellina, a frost dagger to Altair and a small diamond made from ice to Casper.
"These two gifts will never melt, I promise you that." he told the two.
Lanius ventured deep into the forest and soon found his way into a small hill next to a big plain field filled with wild wheat. He climbed up the hill and looked around, spotting a village.
"New style?" Freida asked.
"Yeah, you like it?" the young man asked back.
"It suits you well. It fits a new Winter." she said.
The wind then suddenly blew, giving the scene a taste of a heroic fable.
"A new Winter...why not?" Lanius chuckled , facing towards the village.