Moonspear by a route obscure and lonely

I am so sleepy. This post is no good.

The girl who was not Lucy crept closer, and Cypress curled his haunches to sit facing her. His bearing was Kjalarr’s, straight and tall and a little standoffish, but the brief flash of nearly forgotten kindness that flickered in his lantern yellow eyes was all Eshe. “Cypress,” he answered Lyra dully, tacking on a hastily added, “but sometimes Torgeir.” The Norse name Kjalarr had christened him with didn’t feel like his yet.

Would it ever?

Questions and emotions tumbled over each other in a tangled welter, and he did his best to keep them in their proper boxes. He wished he didn’t want to ask her things like, “Are your parents still alive?” or, “Do you have brothers or sisters?” — but he did. Abruptly he realized that he would feel guilty if something happened to the plucky little sprite, and that was infinitely unsettling. What he did say was something incredibly stupid to tell a child: “I might be cursed,” he informed her in a flat, “just so you know,” baritenor.