"Are you sure about this?" Freida asked Lanius.
"I can't run away from the past." the young man spat his words.
"Nobody is forcing you to do it." Ahri encouraged him.
After the two were done from the temple, they left for Kulhua, a region in Shon-Xan. Specifically, the place that the Verhea formerly inhabited.
The vesani and the Spirit had asked him countless times since they started if he was sure about his decision, and every time he replied positively, tho his gaze told otherwise. Lanius and Ahri now climbed a long grassy hill that led to the village. She was sure that the young man wouldn't handle this but didn't object.
As the climbing came into an end, the young man became more silent, till they finally reached the top and looked down, towards it...or what remained of it.
Out of the 500 houses that were previously there, none was in one piece. The majority of them had been partially burnt to the ground, leaving a few walls or half at best. All of them were also covered with plants and moss.
Lanius and Ahri climbed down and reached the entrance. Ahri scanned the area and located skeletons on the streets that they passed. Some wore Noxian armour, while the majority wore a lighter version of Frejlordian attire. Ahri heard the young man growl. She turned towards him and found that his face was empty, expressionless, emotionless.
The duo silently walked through the town, with the young man becoming gloomier every second.
They approached a big house that was slightly elevated from the ground. Lanius and Ahri stepped inside and took a good look.
The inside and outside was filled with Noxian skeletons, all with at least one broken bone in them. What creeped her about this place was the fact that it was silent. She couldn't hear anything, not even the magic, as if it did not exist here.
The Winter quickly moved towards a door in the other side of the room. Headed in a straight line, tossing aside any object that stood in his way. Ahri instinctively took a step back. He reached and busted the door down by kicking it next to the lock and headed down some stairs that led to a basement. More Noxian skeletons across the stairs. These stairs led to a big room filled with bookshelves. At the center of it lied a skeleton dressed in a plum cloak with numerous swords and spears entering his back. Its jaw was encased in true ice.
"My uncle, the previous Winter." Lanius said. His voice cracked at the last word.
"He was a brave warrior. He was the last one to fall." Freida commented.
Ahri opened her mouth to say something but the young man headed for the bookshelves and began to read the covers. He then pulled out two books. And and handed them to Ahri, who placed them to a satchel she had. They then moved outside and towards the center and reached the biggest house of them all, right in the center.
The young man swallowed as he looked at it. It resembled an old norse house. One fourth of the roof had collapsed inwards. The duo stepped inside. The inside was covered in ash and dust. Most of the furnitures had been broken or burnt. Noxian skeletons were tossed around the house, with many of their bones broken. Lanius looked at one of the walls and then quickly made his way towards another door, opened it and got out, presumably to the garden.
Ahri turned around to see what caused the young man to exit the house. A tall skeleton with a black sleeveless shirt was burried from below the waist in rubble, surrounded by Noxian soldiers. Five spears stuck out of his back, indicating that he had put up a fight. He had a few silver strands of hair around his skeletal shoulders, identical to the color of the Winter's hair. Ahri understood...it was his father.
Ahri then suddenly felt the temperature rapidly drop. "Oh no..." she whispered and rushed outside through same door that she saw Lanius exit. As she barged out, she came to a hault as snow fell on the ground.
Lanius stood still in front of something, clenching his fists. Ahri slowly approached him and looked at his face. Tears were streaming out of his right eye.
"Lanius?" Ahri turned around to see what he was seeing. Three skeletons, one about the vesani's height lied curled on the ground next to two Noxians ones. It wore a tan cropped top and a loincloth. Her feet resembled those of a feline and had a tail on her lower back.
"Emai..." Lanius whispered and fell to his knees. More tears streamed out of his eyes. More snow began to fall. "Emai" meant mother in modern Ionian. Ahri had seen the majority of the young man's memories with his mother. He was happy in every single one of them, as if his mother was his comfort zone.
"Lanius..." Ahri whispered and placed a protective hand on his shoulder.
"NOXUUUUUUS!" The young man raised his head at the sky with his eyes closed and screamed. It was a scream full of agony and pain. His head then dropped down and he bagn to cry.
Ahri crouched down next to him and protectively wrapped her hands around him.
.
.
.
Lanius lied on his bed in fetal position, using Ahri's lap as a pillow. Ahri quietly brushed his hair as more tears streamed down from his eye. The young man gently brushed one of the vesani's tails.
"I'm a man in his late thirties and I cry like a child...so ironic." he said and chuckled bitterly.
"You're still young. You're a half vastaya after all, meaning that you'll live for far longer than humans." Ahri's hand moved from his hair to his face. She gently rubbed the three stripes/markings that started from in front of his ears and ended to the mid of his zygomatics. She had the same stripes that he had. Maybe the Vesani and Ziraq shared a common ancestor. The young man sighed, he seemed to have calmed down.
He used to do the same to her when she had that first mental breakdown back at the first Inn. They now stayed at another one, about 20 kilometers away from Kulhua. Lanius burried his parents, searched the house and left, all that at the span of one hour.
"She was the only one that really cared for me...her and my father."
"To lose your caring mother, is to lose half of yourself,that's what a friend had once told me." Ahri continued to rub his markings.
The young man closed his eyes and fell asleep. Ahri stood there for a few minutes and then slowly and quietly moved his head down and lied next to him, hugging him.
"Sleep tight without bad dreams, my sweet little Winter. Don't worry about them, they're in a better place now. I'm sure you'll get to avenge them." she whispered and softly pressed her lips on his nape, inhaling his natural scent, cinnamon and lavender with a faint taste of mint. Ahri loosened her muscles and soon enough fell into a deep dreamless sleep herself.