Firefly Glen spring in your step

A hot, nervous flicker raced its way from the tip of Cypress’ tongue all the way down into the pit of his stomach when the cobalt-eyed wolf confirmed both suspicions — and Charon’s next statement revealed that flicker for what it was: dynamite. The eidolon tried to keep it together and managed to stop his legs from buckling, but only just. “Eshe — ” he started off, his throat tight and his belly burning. “Eshe is — she’s my mama.” The word sounded infantile, and Cypress amended it belatedly: “my mother.” He tried to see the facts for what they were — cold, hard, lifeless things that couldn’t hurt him — and delivered them in as even a tone as he could. “She and Scimitar were killed by a bear last winter.”

Swallowing thickly, “I’m Cypress,” he introduced himself in a hoarse undertone. “Cypress Frostfur.” The resentment he felt toward the forest’s new alpha female bubbled up, and he couldn’t keep the derision from his tone as he muttered, “There’s a different female calling herself Neverwinter Forest’s alpha now.” A dismissive flick of his tail betrayed just what he thought of that noise, though he tried to maintain a hold on his stoic façade. “How do you know my mother?” he wanted to know, his tone questioning but not pointedly so. If the Moonspear wolf didn’t want to talk, Cypress wouldn’t make him.