Sleepy Fox Hollow brimming and broken and somehow

mahler had reluctantly pulled away from a slumbering wylla to wind through the trees before morning arrived. here he found the serenity he had always loved in the deep wild places of sagtannet; he found a trail of a lone pheasant, and followed it sharp-eyed through the trees before a rush and a quick snap of its neck with his heavy jaws.
after dining on the tender meat and leaving a row of feathers scattered around its gutted body, mahler went on, licking red from his jaws and finding where phaedra had crossed from her mother's-meet into the forest.
he found her aureate and contemplative, watching the long-limbed distant figures of deer.
mahler took up a space near her and set his own eyes upon them, careful not to conflagrate this second with his own need to fill the silence. they had come to visit sagtannet and would return with wylla. such things could only inspire a good need for thinking on the part of their daughter.