Cedar was well and truly flummoxed. Not just confused, or bewildered, but outright flummoxed.

He had just gone from what had been the worst possible treatment in his life, to being scurried via cramped back allies and byways into the single most auspicious 'human home' he had seen since his dad had taken him past the ruins of 'that damned #%@&ing tower'. His dad had not really wanted to say anything about it, except that it was a monument to the hubris of 'civilized' races, was a 'gaudy death trap', and 'no-one sensible would get caught dead in it.' 

Unlike that tower though, which had practically glowed from top (it stretched up higher than seemed possible, and the actual top could not even be seen) to bottom with arcane magics, this place was just fancy wood and plaster set inside ornate but common stone masonry. 

Lots of stone masonry. More than he ever had seen in a single dwelling before, and the shere size of it? There couldn't be a rational explanation for a single man to need a house like this. 

It was a confusing and jarring mix of long hallways, high and low ceilings, doors that must have taken whole trees to fashion, and others that did everything imaginable to try and blend into the walls. Hallway, after hallway, after hallway, after hallway, and more stairs than he wanted to see in his life ever again. He literally had no idea how to even get back out again, yet all the people he was with seemed just fine with it.

No wonder dad cursed like he did about 'rich #%$&ers'.

At least he had some idea of where all the wood the loggers insisted they needed likely ended up.  He silently agreed with his dad, this was just shamelessly and brutally wasteful, for not readily discernable reason. 

Anything that wasn't made of a dozen hills worth of quarried and shaped stone, at least a square mile of forest's timber, or enough plaster to coat every surface in mystville 3 times over, was swaddled in the most brightly colored fabrics, garish of paints, or gaudy of metal foils.  He recalled that his dad had compared that tightly and magically sealed tower's interior to a 'castle' like this when he had asked about it. 'Gaudier than a #%&$ing castle! Glowing jewels and gold encrusted like SH*T in an outhouse on every %#&$ing surface!' An' the stairs! Don' get me started on them %#&$ing stairs!'

He remembered asking what a castle was, and was told 'a big assed house for people with more money than they has sense, built ta keep people out, and ta make emselves look more fancy 'an theys needs ta. Noplace for nobody decent, 'ats fer sure.'

Looking at the insides of this one, he could not help but agree.  WHY WOULD somebody actually NEED a house like this? The king, he had been told, was 'like a mayor, only for an entire nation of people,' and could command thousands of people with weapons and magics to march on small settlements like mystville, burn them to the ground, and kill everyone there with ease, if they felt it wss needed. That's what the villagers had described as 'war' to him. it was shortly thereafter that he had agreed it was for the best that such a thing not come about, now nor anytime soon, and had impressed upon him how important it was to prevent.

And it was why he was here, now. In this house that nobody sensible could possibly want to live in.

His thoughts momentarily reflected memories of his own place; a simple one-roomed wooden structure, where the floor gave way to a nice, big cozy hole stuffed full of cottonwood fluff, and in the rest of the room, just a single wooden bench, a wide flat table, a fireplace, some shelves, and some hooks to hang things on.  It was far more sensible to a single person's needs than this place, that's for sure.

He really felt very, very out of place, and that he simply did not belong.

Being too big for any of the furnishings only magnified this feeling. He very much wanted to sit down to digest these thoughts, and to reflect on the mission this 'king' fellow had given him, but he could tell just by looking that not a single one of them was anywhere near strong enough nor wide enough for his ass. The comedic and tragic death of a chair would certainly be the only plausible result from such an attempt.  

Somehow, that only made the 'lack of usefulness' of the place more poignant.

He was interrupted from these thoughts and observations by the oddly tall and quiet woman who had done NONE of the things miss Matilda had strongly impressed upon him were 'required honors and protocols when meeting the soveriegn', (such as calling him 'your highness', or 'your majesty' (despite being neither tall, nor majestic..), kneeling when in his presence, and other silliness, and had remained oddly quiet the entire meeting), who was now standing up tall, boldly asserting a loudish 'Greetings', and blasting him with some kind of magic that made him feel more naked than he did in just his fur-- somehow.

He couldn't tell if the glow in her eyes was blue or purple, but there was a definite glow.

He timidly leaned on his staff in leu of finding a chair, looked at the woman (who had pointed ears and smelled... different...), and then gruffed back

"[color=7bcdc8]Is there .. something I can help you with, Miss? You seem to be.... looking... for something[/color]."