To describe the blue-haired ten-year-old mod as “foul” would be a huge understatement. The short girl walking back through a dense, dark forest, was simmering with rage, not that she would ever flaunt it; the reddish tips of her pointy Elven ears are the only indication that some kinds of emotions were being processed.

What had transpired?

She was indignant, outraged at having her one small refuge from the chaos going on at home, invaded, and also a bit disgusted at the fact that the assailant in question, the intruder on her small moldy, humid, paradise… was a barely clothed guy with ragged breath and bed hair.

Not that appearance really mattered to Lan. Even if the person intruding on her hunting grounds were to be a royal soldier or a well-groomed merchant, she would be furious all the same, the fur of a wolf doesn’t make it any less dangerous.

But it was among it all, the completely unusual attire of the man the (which was almost no attire at all) the thing that caught her off guard, THAT, had thrown her for a loop, like most people, she would have been terrified of seeing an almost naked man approaching her in an isolated place. If not for the fact that he stopped in his tracks as soon as he saw her face, he even apologized. Had she been so scared that it showed on her face? Or had this old guy been able to read her expressions? That was a first.

The other fact was that she knew him, not personally of course, but mostly through the angry gossip and third-person recounts heard on her mother’s clinic and the occasional far-off sighting of the subject in question speaking with her father.

So, Paul Blois’s existence wasn’t a foreign concept to Lantana Donn.

And.

Pervert.

Those were her thoughts after her first encounter with the man. Before, she didn’t really know what to make of him. All the rumors she had heard painted him in a less than flattering light.

Much like what many of the same voices did with her brother, behind her mother’s back, so she wasn’t ready to fall in line with the consensus of the “council of hags” and wanted to give this so-called “enemy of all women” a fair shot.

That wasn’t going to happen now, she had made her mind up, the old witches were right this time, that man was a menace and if she could spend the rest of her days without having to see him again, she would be happy to do so.

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Who does he think he is? Calling me a brat…

And speaking of things she didn’t want to see. The shade of the trees was fading, the sunrays warmed her skin and the visage of the backyard of her home grew ever clearer, Mother Gabrielle sat cross-legged on a wooden chair, comfortably reading her cooking book, the one she always seemed so desperate to memorize, as if committing to memory every instruction would help her become any less of a lousy cook, normally, to any other person, it should, but the woman seemed incapable of not screwing up even the most basic of tasks.

“Hi Lan, how are you today deary? Went out for a stroll?” she said as she waved at her. She waved back; Sofia liked her second mother. She was nice, pretty, refined, good with words and even if her older brother tried his damnedest not to like her, she did and was happy to do so.

“Be careful with that or Maddy may get angry at you,” Gabrielle winked at her.

At that moment she remembered she had been holding a bucket of bugs, and the intentions she had for them, before the encounter with the pervert in the forest she had been gathering some “leggy friends” for something she had planned, Lan liked them, even some, like snails found extremely cute; and now that she knew how to use magic, finding insects was easier than ever, she only had to press her hand against the ground and do her thing, it was instantaneous, she could tell, feel them even where most of them were, how big or small and if they had dug themselves deep into the ground.

Magic like this just came easy to her, for Sofia magic, in general, was easy, she already had a pretty good hold on all the basic spells for the main elements and could control the flow of energy inside her body with ease, far better than her little brother even.

“yes” she replied in her usual dry tone and went back to release them into the wild again, she wasn’t in the mood for pranks anymore, bugs were going out of style, either way, they weren’t enough to scare Maddy now as she had gotten used to them, and magically made them really easy to find, there was no fun to it.

Be free my small friends, I don’t have any work for you today.

There was also not much fun in playing pranks on her family given everyone was pretty on edge at the moment, her mother sighed a lot, worked longer hours, and looked worried at all times, and her father was out in town speaking with Ed’s grandfather and a bunch of old people.

Even her brothers were acting strange.

The situation was affecting her. She didn’t like the feeling of being inside the house, not while knowing “that person” was inside too, the reason behind everything going on. Lan felt helpless, even if no one would probably realize it. Feelings, emotions, and self-expression just weren’t her thing, she was bad at saying what she needed to say, it was better to stay away, playing with the snails, maybe even asking Gabrielle for some “ladylike lessons” was better than the other option.