Neverwinter Forest brother song

The first signs of morning reached into the family den, the golden light gently lapping at Rannoch’s toes as he stirred. Much had changed in just a few short days and Rannoch was attempting to keep up with the emotional baggage that came with the addition of another sibling. Though he already cared deeply for the other puppy already he wa finding it hard to divide his attention between Lucy and Cypress. It had been since Lucy had moved in that most of his attention was now on the girl and less on his brother and he felt guilty for this. He was accustomed to being at his brother’s side and the separation made him slightly more irritable.

He was flanked on both sides by midnight-hued fur. Turning first to Lucy, the child reached over to kiss her on the head before turning to Cypress. “Cy,” he whispered once her was facing his brother. “Wanna go ousside?” a nudge accompanied his quietly spoke invitation.

“Cy.”

The raven-feathered prince was habitually a heavy sleeper, but he was so attuned to the voices of his family that he tended to rouse the moment he was overtly addressed. His oversized ears bounded forward upon his skull as his milky-blue eyes flew open; he stretched his forepaws out and flexed his toes deliciously as he regarded his grayscale brother. A nod answered Rannoch’s question, Cypress’ muzzle turning in toward the heavier boy’s shoulder to nuzzle him gently, lips reeling back and tongue curling as he yawned. He rose to his paws with meticulous care not to make noise and disturb Lucy, and he, too, placed a loving kiss upon the injured foundling’s crown as he followed Rannoch outside. Blinking in the golden glow of morning, Cypress looked upon Rannoch with eyes that seemed muddied somehow — fissures of yellow were breaking through the blue mist of puppyhood, but they lacked the brilliance they would hold when he was an adult.

Rannoch had been spending more and more time with Lucy lately, and Cypress had not gotten in the way of their burgeoning friendship. He treated the girl as any respectful southern gentleman with a doting mother like Eshe might, but he was wary of overwhelming her. She, more than Rannoch, appeared to be Cypress’ true sibling — her lighter, leaner build, soot-colored fur, and bright blue eyes were mirrored almost exactly in the fragile girl. He wanted to know her better, but he also felt — a bit sullenly, at times — that in meeting Rannoch, perhaps she would find her introduction to Cypress anticlimactic. Cypress’ self-confidence had taken a bit of a nosedive; the boys were two months old today, and he was losing more spars than he was winning as he tried to figure out how to use speed, agility, and endurance to his advantage where he lacked in brute strength and sheer muscle mass. It wasn’t something he held against Rannoch, but something he felt self conscious about.

“Mornin’, Noch,” he chirped with another wide yawn, a blissful smile softening his dark and occasionally foreboding facial structure. He was pleased at this time to simply be brothers again and his whiplike tail began to wriggle as he relaxed into the morning with Rannoch at his side. All was well in the world again.

They slipped silently from their home and into the open, a gentle breeze greeting them as they entered the open. Extending his muzzle, Rannoch sniffed at the current as curiosity of what was beyond the clearing pulled him further from his grogginess. He did not smell anything that particularly odd or jarring--  all seemed normal on their homefront. Once such worries were taken care of he stretched forward and turned his attention back to Cypress. Pulling himself from his stretching, Rannoch looked his his brother and noticed something different about his darker brother. And yet, he couldn’t place a paw on what was so different.

“Mornin’, Cy!” He said in response, his eyes alight as he reached forward to nudge as Cypress’ cheek. Now that they were outside the pair had many different activities that they could partake in. “What do ya wanna do?” He asked, pulling back from his embrace. “We could go n get bad woofs? We could assplore….” He liked the second options more than the first, but waited for any input that his midnight-furred brother had to offer.

Regarding his brother with unabashed fondness, Cypress beamed all the wider as Rannoch leaned toward him and nudged affectionately at his cheek. “I ruther assplore,” he confided. Going after bad wolves was fun, but there were so few bad wolves to get — meanwhile, there was an entire territory to explore! “Noch, someday we gonna get the bad woof that hurted Lucy, right?” His eyes fixed with quiet intensity on his burlier brother’s face. The feeling that swam within his gut when he thought of poor Lucy, frightened and injured and confined to the den while she recuperated, was a hot and bitter-tasting emotion he couldn’t put a name to. He did know that he wanted to hurt that bad wolf as Lucy had been hurt; just the thought of it made his wild, tousled hackles flicker to life along his spine. The fur along his nape and shoulders was getting downright unruly, longer than the rest of his pelt, and when he sulked he resembled a roosting bird of prey.

“Where d’you wanna assplore, Noch?” he asked when the subject of Lucy’s attacker had come to a brief pause. There was still so much to consider — for example, how were they going to find out who’d done it?

They were to assplore. Rannoch nodded to this and smiled. “Yes, assplore!” But his excitement did not linger long. At the mention of Lucy’s monster, the child stiffened. He still could not pathom somebody doing what they had done to Lucy and it made him realize that perhaps their happy world wasn’t as perfect as he had thought. “Yes, we will.” The promise was spoken darkly with a frown. He knew that he would do everything in his power to help rid the world of this monster, even if he wasn’t quite sure how to do this.

He stewed in his own anger until another question was asked of him. Blinking, the prince looked to his brother. “Hm,” he offered as his anger fleeted. “Less go…” his eyes darted about the clearing until he found the perfect place-- a thicket just nearby. “There!” Nudging Cypress’ shoulder, Rannoch trudged towards the foliage and looked back to make sure that Cypress was following.

Rannoch’s newfound decisiveness appealed to Cypress, who felt completely and utterly relaxed and content in his surroundings, and not particularly swayed in any one direction. He was happy simply to be with his brother, no matter what they did — and he eagerly followed Rannoch toward the thicket with interest causing his muddied eyes to sparkle with excitement. He did his best to make his steps quiet and stealthy, following the grayscale boy’s lead. “Afore you went asleep, you said you met a — a cousin,” he reminded Rannoch with keen eyes and oversized ears cupped forward interestedly. “Tell about it, Noch!” When the boys were together, sometimes Cypress forgot the niceties his mother had taught him. Although he was the picture of politeness under her scrutiny, he felt warm and unconcerned when he was alone with Rannoch, feeling that sometimes, saying “please” could be skipped over.

As the pair moved on, Rannoch kept their pace casual. His attention mostly remained upon his brother’s face but he would occasionally look about their surroundings to see if there were any bad wolves lurking about in the shadows. Thankfully none were spotted… yet.
His attention from scouting took the back seat as a question was set between the pair and at the mention of a cousin, Rannoch smiled. “Yes,” he replied as he ducked from a low-hanging branch. “Her name wassa Eim and she wanted to see the sun” He blinked at this, still confused at all of the commotion that surrounded their meeting. “An then Mawme found us after I fallded… an den I went back to Dadee,” he shrugged.

Before her could comment any futher an idea came to him suddenly.

“Wanna go look for her?” he asked, a smile spreading.

Cypress listened eagerly as Rannoch explained about the mysterious “cousin” — ducking down under the same branch absentmindedly as his attention remained wholly fixed on the grayscale prince’s face. Long, unkempt fur became tangled in the gnarled bark and Cypress sidestepped a bit to get free. “Eim?” he repeated, fastidious about language as was his wont, eager to get the pronunciation correct. He guessed that a “cousin” was not some exotic creature but merely another wolf. If she’d been anything out of the ordinary species-wise, Rannoch would have said so. “I like the sun,” he added helpfully, trying to be solicitous toward the girl he hadn’t met yet, but he didn’t fully understand what Rannoch meant. Surely if she wanted to see the sun, she had only to look outside her den during the daytime? Cypress took little interest in the world’s beautiful things; he wanted to know what things were and why they were the way they were, but some of the more poetic things were lost on him at this age.

“You falled?” he repeated, his muzzle immediately poking toward Rannoch; if the dandelion fluff boy allowed it, Cypress would nose through his fur with a cursory air, looking for wounds. “Diddit hurt? Are you all better?” Those were the important questions — Cypress was first and foremost concerned with his little brother’s welfare. Though the burlier cub seemed okay, his gangly brother needed to hear the verification of it for himself. He stopped short at lecturing Rannoch on safety, though, at the wickedly mischievous smile that spread across the younger boy’s face. “Yeah,” he said immediately as though entranced, wide-eyed at Rannoch’s ingenuity, shocked out of his diatribe before a single word could be launched. “Yeah!” he repeated with burgeoning enthusiasm. He would see this cousin for himself and figure out what exactly that special title meant. “Noch’re smart,” he praised with a kiss aimed toward his brother’s pallid cheek.

Concern washed over Cypress at Rannoch’s mention of falling and to this, Rannoch paused in step and accepted the poking and prodding that he had gotten. The two had been through enough boo-boos and scrapes to know that the other sibling had to examine the other when such facts were learned. Watching carefully, Rannoch simply shook his head in reply to his brother’s question and offered a smile. I’m okay, Cy!

When the spotlight was off of him and to the subject of their cousin, Rannoch brightened at the prospect of an adventure. Cypress’ enthusiasm was met with an excited yip from and a madly waving tail. Yes, they would find their cousin! Taking the lead, Rannoch sprinted off. His mind quickly went back to the place where he had met their sand-hued cousin.
“Comeon, Cy!” He called over his shoulder. Despite his initial sprint Rannoch would soon find that his bulky figure would not do his running any favors and that Cypress would most likely be able to easily keep up with him.

Rannoch’s memory lead the pair in the direction of the clearing where he had last seen Eimar. As they got closer, Rannoch found that there were far more obstacles in their way then he could recall, but he would not let this get in their way. As he ducked, swerved, and leapt, Rannoch slowly felt the creeping suspicion that nothing looked like it had before and that perhaps he had been wrong. The area of the woods that they had stumbled across was more populated with foliage than the sun-filled clearing. Craning his head skywards, the boy looked to the treetops with a determined exhale, avoiding eye contact with his brother as he attempted to figure out where he had lead them.

Cypress was quick to follow his brother, his swifter paws easily keeping pace with the sterling Neverwinter prince; aside from the journey he had taken with Rannoch previously, he hadn’t ventured very far from the whelping den. His muddied eyes were eager as he drank in the new surroundings, his paws moving instinctively even as he glanced this way and that. Only when they began ducking under, swerving around, and leaping over various obstacles did he have to focus, and he did so with furrowed brow and a determined glint in his eye.

He did not share his brother’s sense of foreboding, being the blessed innocent in this particular scenario, and rejoiced in the kaleidoscopic array of new scents. His nose was busy as he snuffled around the clearing, and he did not even notice Rannoch’s consternation until it had gone on for some time. “Whassamatter, Noch?” he questioned blithely. Her certainly didn’t see hide or hair of this “cousin” here, but perhaps she simply wasn’t home. Cypress looked upward, too, as though perhaps there was an answer to be found in the sky itself. “Whassa lookin’ at?”

His attention continued remained skyward even as Cypress questioned him. A sense of panic overcame him, but he did not allow this feeling to surface. Instead, until he tamed it somewhat, he kept his eyes off of his brother and towards nothing in particular. When the drumming within his heart slowed once again, Rannoch turned to his brother with a look of discomfort. He did not want to come off as ingenuine to his brother, but, on the other hand, he also did not want to come off as unknowledgable. He wanted to seem like he was in control and that everything was okay.

Swallowing hard, he attempted to answer his brother. “I, uh, lookin,” it was not with the most confident of tones that he spoke. The hairs along his nape prickled as his discomfort of the situation grew and a stiff smile grew upon his lips. “An, dun think she ‘ere.” There, that was enough to get them somewhere! Desperately, he glanced around and came across some low-growing foliage that surrounded a tunnel. It could have easily been a fox’s den, but such dangers were still a foreign concept to Rannoch. The only knowledge he understood fully was the dangers of monsters. Did he know what a monster was? No, but he assumed that he would know one if he saw it.

Leaping into action, Rannoch headed towards the tunnel. He said nothing as he sped through, taking the hit from any branches that were in his way. The tunnel lead way to a clearing and Rannoch lingered at the end of the tunnel, peering out of it curiously as he waited for Cypress to catch up.

It didn’t occur to Cypress that Rannoch was bluffing. The grayscale cub played a good game of it, his gaze dancing from bough to brush to the sky itself, and his raven-feathered brother was left to marvel at his feigned perceptiveness. The look of discomfort that Rannoch set upon his older, leaner littermate was met with a sobering glance. “Noch, whassamatter?” Cypress questioned again, more insistently this time, his brow furrowed as he took a smattering of behavioral cues from the blue-eyed boy. Rannoch’s eyes were changing, too, from winter blue to brilliant turquoise — but the difference was so subtle and natural Cypress couldn’t mark it. It frustrated the muddy-eyed boy that his brother was refusing to tell him what was going on — Rannoch was clearly upset and worried about something — but he set it aside with a roll of his shoulders, the mantle of silver-edged black hair along his nape and shoulders ruffling like an agitated avian. He, too, averted his eyes, sauntering over to a nearby tree to proclaim his ownership of it. If Rannoch wasn’t going to talk, neither would Cypress! So there!

“I, uh, lookin’,” Rannoch said then, and one of Cypress’ too-tall ears swiveled to show he was paying attention. “An, dun think she ‘ere.”

Cypress assumed incorrectly that Rannoch’s taciturnity had come about due to his disappointment in their cousin’s not being home and instantly forgave his brother with a swift turn and pad of paws. He bumped the underside of Rannoch’s chin decisively — a physical manifestation of “Chin up, Noch!” — and grinned toothily at the younger boy. “Don’ matter none,” he reassured the dandelion fluff prince with a flicker of their mother’s Southern charm. “Issokay, Noch.” He was eager to follow the other boy, and when Rannoch dove toward the tunnel Cypress was swift to follow. Differences in their bearing were made clear as Rannoch smashed through the branches like a fluffy battle tank and Cypress chose to weave and duck and dart as he slunk his way through the tunnel like quicksilver. They were both growing into their gangly legs and lengthening bodies, surefooted and capable in a way that would make their father proud.

With his brother’s reassurance still chiming in the depths of his mind, Rannoch turned away and made his way into the clearing. His eyes hopefully glanced around, seeking anything that would catch his brother’s attention. His mind reeled as his eyes desperately sought the clearing in an attempt to find anything peculiar or eye-catching. As time trudged on, Rannoch took another step into the small, poorly-lit glade. Just as he was about to give up something suddenly did catch his attention and to the sight he tilted his head.

“Cy,” he breathed, taking another step towards the shrubbery that laid opposite to the boys. What his eyes had caught sight of was an orange leaf, freshly fallen from a source beyond their forest. Bouncing forward, Rannoch hovered over it and poked at it hesitantly. “Whasset?” he asked, qucikly forgetting his previous turmoil.

The brightly glistening leaf was a vibrant, monarch butterfly orange; Cypress had never seen its like before. Hesitantly, the raven fledgling stretched his nose forward inch by tremulous inch — and when the tip of his muzzle made contact he flinched sharply, as if it had burned him. It hadn’t, but as puppies are wont to do he’d well and truly scared himself. Still, owing to his intrepid nature, it wasn’t long before he repeated the gesture with slightly more confidence. “Issa leaf, Noch,” he said finally, sounding inexplicably relieved. “Jussa little leaf.” He giggled, the sound light and innocent, androgynous in his youth. “I thought it wassa burrerfly — butterfly.”

Together the boys continued to explore until their paws were tired and their empty stomachs drove them home to their parents.