Chương 279: (274) 4.53. Burning the Candle at All Ends

Vin couldn't see the expression on the capillan's face through all the hair, but he was able to make out the confused look in the being's eyes as they stared back at him. After a few seconds, the capillan finally spoke.

"Hello friends… I'm Rickten," he spoke, his eyes growing wide as they dropped down to Scule and Reginald's heads poking out of Vin's pocket.

"What, uh… what are you people?"

"What do you mean?" Scule asked as he pretended to start crying.

"We're capillans! We lost all our hair in a terrible hunting accident! One of us even lost all their skin!"

"Damn it, Scule!" Vin sighed, shoving the cackling Scule back into his pocket and hearing the telltale sound of Reginald smacking his companion with his tail.

"Please, ignore him. We're from fragments different from your own. I'm a human, the tiny idiot is a petian, and Lumel over there is a pulmon. We're friends of Forpurt." Rickten looked more confused than anything by Scule's outburst, as even if he had lost all his hair, there was no way the tiny man could ever have been a capillan. But the moment Vin dropped Forpurt's name, he blinked and did a double take.

"You know Forpurt? How?"

"We ran into him during our travels a few weeks back," Vin explained.

"I ran into him a second time since then, but it has been a bit since we last spoke. He invited us to drop by his village if we ever had the chance, so we thought we'd take him up on the offer."

"Well now, any friend of Forpurt's is a friend of the village," Rickten said, sounding much less worried than he had a few moments ago. Turning to Lumel, he bowed his head.

"And my apologies for my outburst at seeing under your hood. I was just… caught off guard."

"I understand," she said, a small smile just barely visible from under her hood.

"Don't worry about it."

"Anyway, I can't thank you three enough for all your help with the monster. The area near the village is generally rather safe these days, but of course, there's always some risk with heading out. I was trying to gather some roots for dinner when the Ursigon jumped me."

"You let something that big sneak up on you?" Scule's voice called out from within Vin's pocket.

"What were you doing, sleeping in the snow?"

"I told you, I was digging for roots," Rickten said, the hair along his face rippling in what Vin could only imagine was a frown.

"My head was buried in the snow. By the time I felt it coming, it was far too close for me to outrun. If you three hadn't shown up, I would have been a goner. I have to say, I wasn't expecting to find foreigners out here, let alone people capable of magic."

"Do you have those capable of magic within your own village?" Vin couldn't help but ask, already wondering if ice was treated as a separate affinity by the System. Of course, even he knew that ice was just frozen water, but there was always a chance the System might throw a curveball at them.

"We have a few Shamans, yes," Rickten nodded.

"I'm sure they'd be happy to talk magic with you if you're interested. Here, why don't we all start heading back to the village? Forpurt only just got back from one of his excursions last night, so he should still be here for another few days."

"That would be great, thank you," Vin said, motioning for him to lead the way. With that, Rickten quickly found the sack of roots he'd dropped in all the excitement, before he started off toward the village. He gave the snowshoes Vin and Lumel were wearing a few curious glances, but didn't bother asking them about the weird shoes. Rickten himself simply plowed straight through the dense snow, showing off the capillans' natural strength as it barely slowed him down.

It wasn't long before the capillans' village came into view, and Vin couldn't help but snort as it ended up being exactly what he'd expected. A hundred or so large, round igloos were scattered about in some semblance of order, each one with a small trail of smoke leaking out a hole in the top. There were dozens of capillans wandering about here and there, either shoring up houses with patches of snow or simply chatting with one another.

Vin spotted a few children off to the side of the village battling it out in what looked like the mother of all snowball fights, taken to an entirely different level. From what he could tell, the capillans apparently made their snowball fights full contact, as the children weren't just hitting each other with snow. Seeing a few of the hairy children full on tackle one another and desperately try to bury them under a few feet of snow was somehow both terrifying and oddly cute, in a way.

It seemed one wasn't out of the game until they were buried so deeply they were functionally trapped with nothing but their head poking out. As they got closer, a few capillans finally spotted them, and Vin got to witness the news of their arrival spread through the village like a physical wave as heads turned in their direction. By the time they actually made it to the edge of the village, every single capillan outside their homes was watching them, and quite a few heads were poking out of igloo entrances.

The atmosphere was a bit more tense than Vin would have liked, but thankfully, a familiar voice called out to them.

"Friends! Vin! It is good to see you again!" Forpurt called out, stepping out of one of the larger igloos and throwing his arms wide open.

"Everyone! These are some of the good people I encountered during my travels! Vin here was on a quest to save a dying friend of his, and he moved snow and ice in order to bring them back from the brink of death! Fear not, they are good people!" At Forpurt's encouragement, the tense atmosphere changed almost in an instant, as hard gazes quickly thawed into acceptance and curiosity, and most of the people went back to whatever they'd been doing before Vin and his team arrived.

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"What a surprise!" Forpurt said as he walked over to them.

"I know I invited you to the village, but that was ages ago. I figured you decided the cold wasn't for your tastes!"

"Sorry, things have been busy," Vin said sheepishly, nodding his thanks toward the hairy man. Just like the last two times he'd run into Forpurt, the man's dark hair was accompanied by a worn-looking leather satchel strung over his shoulder.

"I'll admit, excuse the pun, but that was a bit of a colder reception than I was expecting. The way you talked about it, I thought your people would be happy to see outsiders."

"Ah, that's not quite the way things work," Forpurt said, nodding toward Rickten.

"You should go deliver those roots to your block."

"Of course, Trusted One," Rickten said, bowing his head. Rather than do as ordered, however, he stepped up and whispered in Forpurt's ear. It wasn't until Forpurt nodded that Rickten gave them one final look before turning and running off without a word. The area around the village had actual paths from how frequently the capillans had to traverse it, and Rickten proved all that strength allowed them to move quite quickly when they weren't forcing their way through multiple feet of snow.

"Trusted One?" Lumel asked, perking up a bit at the curious title. She'd been a bit downcast ever since Rickten had screamed at the sight of her face, but it would seem her curiosity toward how other cultures worked was stronger than her depression.

"Yes, I am one of my village's Trusted," Forpurt said, as if that explained anything at all.

"It is a title given to only a few people each generation. To those who have proven themselves to the village above all others. The word of the Trusted is law, and to question or disobey them is a grave offense."

"Really?" Vin blinked, surprised to discover that the Wanderer Forpurt held so much sway within his own village. For the first time, Vin realized the two of them might be more alike than he thought.

"What did you do to earn such a title?"

"I went out into the world of Edregon and brought knowledge back to my people during the Endless Thaw," Forpurt explained, motioning for them to follow him into one of the smaller igloos.

"I am the youngest of the Trusted in my village, but as I am the only one comfortable exploring the other fragments, the decision was a simple one." They all entered the igloo, and Vin let out a sigh of relief at the dramatic increase in temperature once they were inside and out of the wind. Other than an outer ring of dirt that functioned as a large circular bench, there was a hole dug into the earth with a bedroll and a small fire in the center.

Vin sniffed and scrunched up his face when he finally realized exactly what the capillans were using for fuel for all their many fires. Hair. They were burning small clumps of greasy hair. Forpurt must have spotted his expression, because the capillan laughed as he sat down on the ring of dirt.

"It's not the wood that so many of you foreigners prefer to burn, but we don't have much wood on our world for that purpose. The oils and density of our hair means small amounts burn long and slow, perfect for warming our homes."

"How fascinating," Lumel said, staring at the slow-to-kindle hairs burning in the center of the room.

"How fast does it grow back?"

"We don't cut off hair to burn except in emergencies, like the Deep Snow we experienced a few years ago," Forpurt said, shivering for the first time that Vin had seen. The act sent a ripple down all the hair covering his body, and he stared into the fire as if haunted by memories.

"No, we usually burn hair that falls off naturally. We collect it and add it to the fuel stores."

"While walking Rickten back, he mentioned that your village has people capable of magic," Vin said, eager to hear more about the capillans' magical abilities.

"Is there any chance you could introduce us to your Shaman?"

"After you saved the life of one of our own? Yes, I'm sure I could arrange a meeting with one of the Shaman," Forpurt said.

"However, they are in the middle of something at the moment. The earliest they would be able to see you would be in the morning. If you would like, I'd be more than happy to lend you the use of my igloo for the night. It is technically a spare that I earned for my status as a Trusted One, but I have my own block I can sleep with."

"That would be great, thank you," Vin said, eager to get the snowshoes off his feet and relax for a few minutes. Forpurt seemed to pick up on this, as he stood back up and presumably smiled, the hair on his face shifting once more.

"In that case, I'll return when it is time for dinner. For now, just make yourselves at home and try to warm up. Please let someone know if you require more hair."

"Don't worry, I think we'll be fine," Vin said, wrinkling his nose as the smell hit him once more. So long as he didn't think about it he was able to ignore it, but every time it was brought up or he peered into the fire, the smell smacked him in the face all over again. Waving, Forpurt left them to it, quickly piling more snow up by the entrance to function as something like a door. Shaking his head, Vin turned to glance at Lumel.

"Well… capillans are certainly a bit stranger than I expected."

"Are you kidding? They're so fascinating," she said, any trace of her earlier melancholy nowhere to be found.

"I'm quite excited to meet their Shaman!"

"Glad the two of you are enjoying this," Scule said, climbing out of Vin's pocket and dropping down onto the bench.

"Seriously, do either of you have any idea how long it's been since I got the chance to take something worthwhile from people? I'm going to need to make another trip to the citadel just to scratch the itch if this keeps up!"

"Weren't you planning on stopping by again to see your family anyway?" Vin asked, thinking about how many days it had been.

"You said you aim for once a month, right? It's been a few weeks since the last time you vanished."

"Yeah, I was planning on probably visiting them after this adventure in fact," Scule said, sighing at the reminder.

"Don't get me wrong, I love my siblings. But my parents… Well, let's just say there's a reason I left home when I did."

"I don't suppose there's any chance you'd let us come meet them, is there?" Vin tried, seeing Lumel grow even more excited at the thought of learning about petians and experiencing their culture directly. In fact, while he'd told her all about the citadel, she hadn't been in that fragment yet either.

"We'll see," Scule said, moving closer to the fire and wrinkling his face as he held out his hands to it.

"Oh Gods… Smite my nose, this thing is foul!"