Neverwinter Forest So, what's the problem?

The female — he could not think of her as his sister — pointedly elevated her carriage, rising to her full height and fixing her supposed subordinate with a saccharine smile of questionable construct. Cypress remained impassive, one tall, sharp ear winging awry in a physical manifestation of his desire to deflect what he perceived to be condescension in her tone. Inside the boy was a pool of quiet, cold calm; he sank into it, watching the dark whorl of his emotions from a safe place undersea, and maintained his sulphureous stare without blinking. At just over six months old, he still had about half a year of skeletal growth to look forward to, and the hardships leading up to and encompassing his first winter had cut him into hard-bitten lines and jutting angles. Still, even without the wild, tousled briars of his stygian fur, Cypress wouldn’t have appeared weedy or gangly. He lacked the “filled out” appearance of an adult wolf, but at this stage of the game he was already taller than his cousins and just as steely-muscled. The winter had been frigid and miserable, but it hadn’t been lean by any means. Defiant still, he stopped just short of an unforgivable transgression, his lips kept tightly tucked over his teeth and the marred line of his mouth stoic.