Neverwinter Forest Would you accept someone like me?

Cypress is working on his Guardian Apprenticeship, so I hope this is okay. ♥

Preoccupied with his breakfast — one of two stringy weasels that Scimitar had brought by earlier — Cypress hesitated for the briefest of moments before he turned automatically toward the sound of the howl. He imagined that he was a busy king like his father, and loath to leave his current task, but because he was so benevolent — his new favorite word — he must grace the caller with his presence. Being a good leader meant having good manners, after all. Heaving a heavy, put upon sigh, he spurred his long legs into a trot. In all actuality, it was curiosity that quickened his pace, but pretending to be annoyed when he truly wasn’t was rather amusing to the growing boy. Perhaps due to spending the majority of his time alone these days, he was at risk for becoming carried away with his fancies; and to that end, he probably owed the darkling girl his gratitude for anchoring him to his responsibilities.

He approached the borders with a distinct lack of caution — he was a sheltered youth and he had no reason yet to fear the unknown. The female he spotted sat a good distance away from the forest proper, and Cypress, for all his pluck and precociousness, knew he wasn’t allowed to leave the territory without permission. Clambering atop a fallen log and hopping from that log to a boulder, he rose to his full height — not very impressive when he was on the ground, but quite substantial now that he was standing on something else — and looked down at the pretty, dark girl with winter blue eyes and striking pale dots set symmetrically upon her brow. Still playing at being the burdened king, “I am Cypress Benvolio Frostfur,” he proclaimed in a low tenor, his voice still smooth and androgynous in his youth, “guardian of this wood.” It was how he’d always imagined greeting strangers, and he felt accomplished that this was his first time trying it and he hadn’t botched it up.

“Are you friend or foe to Neverwinter Forest?” he asked her, striving for the coolness of tone that his father used when speaking to strangers or scolding his occasionally wayward sons.