mahler ran.
he ran as a young man, pursued or not, to the highest barren reaches of noctisardor.
there mahler began to cough in earnest, the thin air burning through whatever remedy he had lately sought from speedy. his chest felt as thought it might burst; he sank to his haunches and grabbed for glass-shard breaths that set him again to coughing.
head bending lower toward the cold earth, until —
a sharp intake — he stared uncomprehendingly at the spatters of dark crimson that formed an anguished pattern at his feet.
he thought wildly of liri, how her cough had been like his own, unabated; she was the template for his expectation in this regard, and that was why he had never forgotten her name;
mind dizzied now, to wylla, to phaedra — their faces clotting together as he struck down toward the ground with an infuriated, agonized paw. 
his throat was raw from coughing, and he already knew its membranes could catch and bleed.
feverishly mahler buried the droplets and stood shakily to heavy limbs. there were more remedies for a cough than he knew, and he must learn them now, rid himself once and for all of this lingering demon. for that was what it was, only, the last symptom of a springtime cold that had lodged itself in his ageing flesh.
the gargoyle decided it must be this.
but he did not descend until long shadows began to fill rivenwood.