Eshalu observed Aeryn's exchange with the young, unkempt human with interest. "You say you are not yet a leader, yet the child accepted a gift from you. You never told me why it is that your people have such desire for wrought metal, when you must dig it out of the ground and melt it and then beat it again to make something which has no use. And you call us unreasonable and unthinking"<br/><br/><em>Reason</em>; now there was a sticky, slimy human concept if ever there was one. Apparently, anything that could not be found written on slivers of dead wood or could not be reduced to squiggles representing quantity was "unreasonable". In the Lodge of Rangers, the Mistress of the Blade, or of the Bow, or of the Track would ask a druid to commune directly with the spirits. That was an eternal truth, unlike symbols which could be burnt, rubbed out, and re-written.<br/><br/>Yet Eshalu felt a pang of admiration at the ease with which Aeryn mastered human society. Aeryn had the makings of a leader, a strong leader with both wisdom and experience. That had drawn Eshalu in. She had thought all humans clumsy and unappealing, but Aeryn had forced her to think twice. Now, each time the human woman's fingers skirted her hand, gripping tight, it reminded Eshalu of the other, delightful and unexpected things those fingers could do. That reassuring warmth almost made up for the desolate village and the blaring, incomprehensible din of human voices.<br/><br/>Eshalu had seen and understood the longing in Aeryn's eyes and she, too, yearned for the solace of intimacy. She knew that risk seemed to inflame the passion of humans, but for the People it was a matter of survival. A well-trained ranger should know how to steal a few tender moments with her bondmate - or her favourite dryad - even in the midst of hellkite territory.