The Heartwood a wild weird clime, that lieth, sublime

“No. Thankfully,” Cypress answered with feeling, blowing out a sigh of relief at mention of the bramble-riddled forest they’d left far behind. “Stayed there, what, a couple of weeks at most?” He shook his head in disbelief, muttering in a disgruntled tone, “Seems I’ll be pullin’ out thorns for the rest of my life.” His grumpiness at this point was mostly feigned for comic relief — he snuck a glance at his newfound acquaintance to see if it’d done the trick — and he offered a toothy half-grin to show that he wasn’t actually that riled about it. The heavily scarred left corner of his mouth never responded the way he hoped it would, but he didn’t mind so much anymore. He shifted the topic to Lagan himself, giving in to curiosity, trying to get comfortable with the whole “talking to wolves who aren’t Rannoch or Rian” thing.

“What about you?” he asked. “Do you live far from here?”