Bramblepoint cranky curmudgeon

For just a fraction of a moment, Cypress remembered.

“I’ll make sure you see the ocean,” Rannoch said, and just like that, Cypress felt about two feet smaller and a handful of months cleaner. “Thanks,” he said softly, and maybe a little of that old light shone in his lantern yellow eyes, and maybe his lopsided grin lacked its sardonic edge and softened into a genuine smile. The consternation he felt was purely subconscious — is it really possible? is there really happiness left in me? is this a real feeling or something my mind tricked me into? — but it betrayed itself in the way he mislabeled giddiness and excitement for dizziness and miasma. “Could be I’m sick,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head to clear it, his forbidding visage wreathed in a smile that felt unnatural and ill-fitting.

To Noch, he said simply, “I trust you,” and then he got to all fours, stretching his spine with a delicious series of pops. It didn’t make any sense to the eidolon on a logical level, but he felt light and airy and free — he felt like what he thought laughter might feel like, if laughter could have feelings of its own. It was probably some kind of weird indigestion that he’d end up paying for later, but he couldn’t remember eating anything out of the ordinary — and it occurred to him that he didn’t care what this was or why he felt it.

He just wanted to give in to it.

Simultaneously jerking his head up and slapping his forelegs against the earth, Cypress barked at his littermate and swept fluidly to the side, trying to engage the argent-furred male in play.