Firefly Glen the groan of mortal terror

Hello! ^^ I apologize for defiant Cypress.

A subtle shift in the atmosphere gripped Cypress’ swiveling ears, twitching nose, and shifting body, forcing upon him an unnatural paralysis; only the frantic flickering of his lantern-yellow eyes betrayed the sudden, unsettling awareness that he was not alone. At first, the notion was comforting — who could it be but Lucy? — but when his gangly limbs finally unlocked themselves degree by painstaking degree, he turned to face a wolf of gargantuan proportions, as dark as Lucy and Cypress himself, with feverish sumac eyes that hinted at an intensity the boy did not understand. Untested in battle, still the Frostfur boy was unafraid, and he drew himself to his full height, wild hackles jutting out like a haphazard collection of gaping crow beaks that spiked his nape and shoulders. “Nobody,” he lied with a measure of defiance, unwilling to give his greatest secret away to a complete stranger. “Who are you?” Cypress’ voice, lighter and less resonant than the stranger’s, bore a guttural quality as he licked at his lips and curled them in a warning snarl.

Perhaps in her own way Lucy had become Cypress’ Juno — the quintessential goddess on a pedestal; the hearth against whom every other source of light and warmth would be found wan and frail — and his disappointment at being met by a creature he found lesser simply by default cast his starless features in a deep furrow. “Sorry,” he muttered begrudgingly, still enough of a gentleman to apologize when he recognized his own rudeness. Though he would speak no more of his princess, his wing-clipped blackbird, he owed it to his Southern belle mother and his regal father to treat the wolves he met with politeness. “I can’t answer that question,” he answered simply, with a measure of his father’s calm stoicism. He wanted to drive the strange wolf out, knowing that Lucy’s frayed nerves might snap at the sight of another hulking dark wolf with ruddy eyes, but he knew his limitations and merely held his ground. “A good wolf listens as much as he speaks,” he remembered, “and a smart wolf listens more.” He would listen, and he would learn.