Tracker's flat nostrils flared, breathing in the girl-thing's scent. She had bathed, but nothing as simple as a bath could hide its master's scent on the girl-thing. That was good. Master had smelled like longing for half the cycle of the year, since long before she came. Carefully, cautiously, Tracker came out of the undergrowth. The girl-thing smiled when she saw Tracker and put out one slender white hand. Tracker sniffed at her finger tips, crept a little closer, and took hold of her wrist. Squatting, it examined the girl-thing's hand, stroking, smelling the trace of lanolin from her spinning, the pear she'd eaten, Ailill's hair. Tracker licked curiously. She tasted like spring water and sweet salt. The girl-thing sat very still, but no fear tainted her pollen-sweet body smell.
    Giselle had heard of Tracker, but she hadn't seen it before. Its muzzle was almost feline, the hands decidedly pentadactile, and great ram's horns curled over and around its flicking deer's ears. Its fur, short and sleek over skin and muscle, was dappled dark and light, but rapidly turning the same streaky green and gold as the meadow grass. She let the creature smell her, taste her, examine her. It could not speak more than the occasional, slurred word, Ailill had told her, but Giselle had only to look in the luminous, gold flecked eyes and she had no doubt that it was truly intelligent, and cunning. Slowly Giselle reached out with her free hand. It was Tracker's turn to sit very still as she stroked the fine, soft pelt on its arm. She scratched gently around the base of Tracker's great curling horns. The creature made a low, monotone moaning sound as she rubbed all around the base of its horns. Tracker settled down on its haunches in the grass. Giselle went back to her book while Tracker groomed itself and poked flowers into her hair.

*****

    "These are very pretty," teased Ailill, separating a chamomile flower from Giselle's tousled thick hair. He twirled it in his fingers and smiled, drawing it over the swell of her breast.
    Giselle returned his smile. "Tracker decorated me. He was having such a contented time, I didn't have the heart to make him stop it."
    "Tracker put flowers in your hair?" Ailill levered himself up on his elbow. His dark eyes looked down at Giselle in surprise.
    "Mm hmm. I wish I'd met him sooner, but I didn't think it was a good idea before I smelled thoroughly like you." Her fingers traced the muscles of Ailill's chest in slow enjoyment.
    "A wise choice."
    "He was so sweet, such a gentle thing."
    "Gentle?" Ailill snorted. "My dear one, Tracker hunts and eats humans you know."
    The news didn't affect Giselle at all. "Grown or children?" she asked, the way she might have asked if he wanted honey or lemon in his tea.
    "Grown men. They're better sport." Ailill laid emphasis on his words.
    Giselle pushed up on her elbow to look in Ailill's eyes, concerned. "Well, darling, Tracker isn't human, you know. It's not as if it's committing cannibalism," she reasoned seriously, "but if it upsets you, I'm sure you have only to speak firmly to Tracker," she offered.
    A faint, wondering smile dawned on Ailill's harsh face. Leaning forward, he kissed her as if for the first time and bore her back into the pillows.

*****

    "You mark me, now, I know," said Arault as he sat with Gair, smoking his pipe in the darkening evening. Llew laid in the hay at their feet. He twitched. The hay rustled with his dreaming. Arault kicked the Kennel Master lightly, and Llew rolled over and slept more quietly. "It's changed something to have the two together."
    "Oh aye, an' how'd ye know?" teased Gair.
    "The ground knows, and I know the ground. A little roll in the hay don't move it. I've seen trilliums are blooming thick in the hollows only a year after those pesky nymphs picked 'em. Then there's the lady slippers. We haven't had any of them ever. You mark me, things'll be different with her here," prophesied the old, gnarled faerie, wagging his pipe at the little mortal for emphasis.
    Gair smiled and sipped his beer. He look toward the great, gray spires of Ailill's castle, at the warm golden light that burned in one of the tower windows. "Is that bad?" he asked, a little wistfully.
    Arault snorted, but Gair noted that he didn't say 'yes' either.