Moonspear surging unto skies of fire

Cypress didn’t expect overt warmth from the cobalt-eyed alpha, especially when greeting a near-stranger at his doorstep, so he wasn’t particularly perturbed by the pale wolf’s taciturnity. Even without the alliance, the eidolon would still have attempted to curry favor and cultivate a relationship with Moonspear — Eshe had loved Charon, and Cypress craved a relationship with the older wolf after having lost his parents so young. Though he didn’t recognize it himself, he wanted badly to find a mentor of sorts. Unfortunately, his clumsy social mannerisms didn’t exactly make him a great candidate for that.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, immediately and genuinely. He responded to the saucy flick of Hydra’s tail with a fierce grin. “Good,” he rumbled, his tail lashing his hocks in shared triumph. “Did you guys — is everyone okay, or at least on their way to being okay?” Bears ruined everything. That was the gist of what Cypress was picking up here. He wished he had a similar story to tell about defeating the bear who’d terrorized the Northstar wolves, but he didn’t — and though he’d once been one for embellishing, he wasn’t anymore.

“I’m coming! Cypress — I’m here!”

The grin that still lingered on Cypress’ lips, lopsided due to the scarring at the leftmost corner of his mouth, twitched wider still. “Oof!” he grunted reflexively as Alya barreled into him, checking automatically for a leaf — but he found the girl unmistakable in her exuberance. Hydra and Lyra would never be this happy to see him, he reasoned; he couldn’t imagine why either of them would pretend to be, either. He didn’t even really know why Alya was so happy to see him — he wasn’t really anything special — but he couldn’t deny that he craved this reaction from her. “I missed you, too, darlin’,” he said fondly, looking a question at Hydra for her follow-up statement. Why would Lyra miss him?

Cypress was intelligent and sharp but largely guileless and he didn’t understand straight out of the gate that his affection for Alya was something he ought to hide. “I was just talking to Charon,” he said, also unaware that flattery might have been the way to go here. “He was friends with my mother.” He glanced toward the pale alpha again, his lantern-yellow eyes falling upon the male’s chest rather than meeting his blue eyes. A quick whisk of his tail bespoke his gratitude for the older male’s audience even as he plucked a stray piece of debris from just behind Alya’s ears with a deft twist of his muzzle.

Boldly and baldly, “I’m real glad to see you again,” he told her.