Neverwinter Forest i felt free

Ever attuned to his brother’s moods and machinations, Cypress roused only a moment or two later. He padded with new confidence toward the mouth of the den, his oversized paws still floppy and uncoordinated but fortified with a new sense of balance as he began to grow into them. Yawning so wide his jaws popped deliciously, Cypress shook out his soot-colored fur and slipped out into the summer humidity to stand beside the puff of dandelion fluff that was Rannoch. Pressing his cheek lovingly to his brother’s dusty shoulder, nibbling fondly at the crest of the boy’s shoulder, Cypress bent his muzzle to the earth to breathe in the good, woodsy scents he found there.

Both boys were starting, quite literally, to take shape — blunt, rounded muzzles were just beginning to elongate and taper; tiny turtle flippers were becomingly disproportionately long in comparison to the size of the boys’ torsos; and little rat tails were growing long and serpentine. Personalities, too, were beginning to emerge — Cypress beamed readily, having moved from his somber, stoic infancy into the bright sunshine of childhood, and bounded forward as a summer breeze stirred up a rattle of leaves only a few feet away. “Dah?” questioned Cypress, echoing his brother’s earlier call, mistaking the faint sound for his father’s footfalls. “Ammon, Nah!” he urged, a willing accomplice and awful instigator. “Come on, Noch!” They would surely find Scimitar — he had been right there, hadn’t he?