The Heartwood a wild weird clime, that lieth, sublime

Cypress, whose knowledge of play was limited to physical contest -- that, against Rannoch, he was hard-pressed to win -- shook his head and stared down at the rock with a furrowed brow and a near-glower of consternation. "What do I do?" he asked in a small voice, actually made unnerved by the introduction of the unfamiliar, no matter how innocuous it seemed. He was good at patrolling borders and giving serious advice, but this whimsical stuff? He didn't have the faintest clue what to do or how to behave. "I might be real good at this," he warned Lagan just as he'd warned Alya in the dead of winter. "Prepare for disappointment!" he seemed to say.