Larksong Grotto i see fire

got carried away

it had been a quiet journey. with a long howl into the alpine air for @Praimfaya, knowing she had returned from her questing and would be within earrshot, mahler informed her of his intentions. it was daring, declaring such so loudly, but he trusted her judgement, and he trusted himself for placing her at his side.
and so he led laurel on the most direct route: keeping the distant peak of lonely nova at their forefront. they passed first through the maplewood he knew would be vibrant and cerise in the summer. 
where rivenwood ended the wetlands began; he felt himself begin to come undone as this land stretched before them. he jerked away from the place, turned their path at its edge. he did not want to be there again.
mahler kept gait steady as they passed by the cache of herbs he had visited with iana, but it was not their trek there he remembered first. it was his with elke, after they had at last left the sunspire and traveled many days across the taiga as sagtannet. elke. moonspear, destroyed. tears came to his eyes and he hid them from laurel. 
by the time that they reached the moraine, mahler could think only of how he had once run and hunted in this locale with takiyok; by this time his throat had already constricted several times, grief locked behind the heavy door of his expression. yes, he knew these lands well. 
they curved across the plains. nova stood tall before them. the familiarity of it quickened his paws and he carried laurel to the grotto with a final climb. 
mahler looked at her now, silent, wondering what her own open countenance might say.