Phildee gave way to instinct.
The fur along the ridge of Riya's spine prickled with a well-remembered happiness as she felt the hesitant answering surge in Phildee's mind. Moving surely forward, she nuzzled his face. Phildee grinned. He ran his fingers through the thick fur at the base of her short neck.
Big warm wall of brown fur.
Cool, happy nose.
Happy, happy, eyes.
Great joy welled up in Riya. No shameful trot across the mountains faced her now. No hesitant approach to the huddled, suspicious wildlings was before her. The danger of sharp female hooves to be avoided, of skulking at the edge of the herd in hope of an anxious male, was a thing no longer to be half-fearfully approached.
With a nudge of her head, she directed Phildee down the path to the old range while she herself turned around. She stood motionless for a sweeping scan of the plain below her. The couples were scattered over the grass—but couples only, the females as yet unfulfilled.
This, too, was another joy to add to the greatest of all. So many things about her calf were incomprehensible—the only dimly-felt overtones of projected symbology that accompanied Phildee's emotional reactions, the alien structure—so many, many things. Her mind floundered vainly through the complex data.
But all that was nothing. What did it matter? The Time had been, and for another season, she was a dam.