Spotted Eagle Mountain To the outside, the dead leaves laid on the lawn

diaspora's former home was too far for mahler to travel, as nyx was more advanced in her pregnancy. she had requested his help at the whelping, and so he toured over the low reaches of sagtannet — among those wylla-damned foothills — looking for things he might use to replenish his pharmaecopia.
at length, his eye was drawn to the grassy slopes that led into the hollow, and he followed the remembered old paths down into the place where diaspora had once weathered. it had never been home, but it was here where a good many things occurred.
painful things.
shocking things.
the gargoyle nosed through stale old dens, looking for where he had last secreted his bundles of old medicine, but the snows had torn most away and what remained was all but dust.
he clucked in dismay and would have turned away were it not for the scent of her tracing through here, the fierce winterwhite who had never forgiven him. mahler drew up in consternation, but in the next moment his broad paws were carrying him along the trail that deepened and freshened and turned raw within his senses
takiyok had left mahler here, and now the shadowpriest discovered her weakened form lying in an old honeycomb of crumblung dens. words fled; his amethyst eyes envinced shock only a moment before he swept into his doktor's business, briskly reaching to nose along her muzzle, tasting the bitterness of her vomit there.