Neverwinter Forest Would you accept someone like me?

The female moved with sinuous grace, rising to her full height to regard the small boy upon his throne of granite and shale. His tail flagged the air with eager anticipation when she cleared her throat, though he tried to still it and maintain a façade of regal nonchalance. The mask of stoicism shattered at her first words — “The Great Guardian Cypress Benvolio Frostfur,” — and was swiftly replaced with a sunny smile that Cypress could not suppress. He puffed out his thin chest, holding his breath to sustain the illusion of being a barrel-chested, broad-shouldered beast like his brother, but was stripped of his confident posture at her question. All the oxygen in his lungs huffed out in a perplexed rush. “If a foe…is truly a foe…” he repeated to himself, brow furrowing as he worked to untangle her meaning.

“No?” Cypress answered finally, though his voice tipped timorously upward at the end of that trailing syllable. He wasn’t sure. “Y’mean — do you mean…lying?” he asked in a hushed undertone, as though speaking of the act was just as bad as committing it. He was a blessed innocent with no inclination toward subterfuge, and the idea that a wolf might be dishonest for no discernible reason was utterly foreign to him. The thought flummoxed him so, he dropped to his haunches, looking for all the world like a raven with ruffled feathers. “You didn’t answer me,” he pointed out to her, feeling vaguely irritated at his question being answered with a more confusing question, “but if you were a foe you would’ve tried to eat me already, right?” He felt a little uneasy after all, but scrambled back to his feet, arching his tail high above his head and fixing her with his sternest gaze. “You look like my sister and my — Lucy.” His tone implied that because she had the same fur color as Allure and Lucy, she couldn’t possibly be a foe, but there was a note of confusion in his voice that said he wasn’t sure.