Nova Peak unkundig

"elke." 
mahler drew up as his schneekind settled her eyes upon him, her voice. she had grown, he realized, grown into a long-legged girl spiraling heavenward toward adulthood. and while puppy nature still clung to elke, she was shedding it.
like phaedra. like ciri. even astraeus, growing fierce and boisterous and surefooted. 
his daughters, three of them, pale sky and dark wheatfield.
mahler tossed himself from his reverie, smiled guiltily into the inquiry of her eyes, his shade, his hue.
"i vent to the cliffside to make sure no vone else vas settling near us. they vere not unoccupied. and so i defended us, and our right to be here first." the gargoyle explained what had occurred in a a quiet voice, though through the telling of it he weakened and lowered his haunches to the earth in fatigue.