It is Fern that comes across the spoor of the creature - a yellowish wad of rank strands amidst a smear of ocher stickiness, sitting half-buried in a sand pile against the left-hand wall of the enclosure.<br/><br/>And it is Miaren who is found by the creature himself.<br/><br/>He comes with a rustle of the jade-leafed myrrh trees that cluster on the right-hand side of the grove.  Perfume teases Miaren.  Branches conspire anxiously.  There is a shifting of scent.<br/><br/>Then out he stalks, moving through the break in two trees with the patient confidence of a total sovereign: A griffon buck.<br/><br/>Bronze and gleaming on his leonine parts, which lift to five feet at the shoulder, he advances on Miaren without haste.  The avian sharpness of his features, mantled in pale plumage, lifts in interest.  Yellow eyes pin into her like claws.  White wings spread, and the air shudders in hot awe.  Contented growling strikes up the minor keys of a cello concerto in his throat.<br/><br/>He is nearly nine feet long, and he is built ox-big, and he is bearing down on Miaren steadily.  And looking into his eyes, she can see in the acquisitive amber what the weird chemicals soaking her core inform her in nervous throbbing:  He looks on her and sees not prey, but a mate.