he had a mentor throughout his youth into his young adulthood: a grizzly old roe woman named Eifasthal whose cabin was situated just close enough to his childhood village that she would go there for supplies and restocking. she was the kind of person who spoke a maximum of five sentences when she was in town and left as soon as she got what she needed. it wasn't a secret that she was in military service for decades before Garlemald descended and vanxx ate up every rumour about her before he made up his mind that she would teach him something beyond working in fields and other small town boy jobs.

eifa. reluctantly. saw the opportunity to have someone with not fucked up knees and old injuries to help her take care of things around her home and make the trek to the village for her. vanxx was more of an errand boy than anything at first for a long time but that cabin was an extraordinarily welcome escape despite the hard work. Eifa wasn't afraid to watch her tongue around him and she was the first person he could have open and frank conversations with, vent ugly frustrations, share aspirations that weren't safe and small. While Eifa's concern for him started mostly out of the halfway concern that he'd go and put himself in an early grave if someone didn't ground him in reality, her cabin eventually became something tied to a sense of real self, and it was one of the few places he felt utterly and completely safe. Things and fears and worries he couldn't share even with family and friends he could confide in Eifa to, on and into adulthood. A great many of his fond earlier memories are centred around long cold walks in the middle of winter to Eifa's where he'd be shouted at for his crummy coat before thawing in front of the hearth; summer forest smell, campfire smoke still in the air from whatever they'd caught that day while Eifa groused about proper form