But when she heard what it was that made him squirm and fickle so that he could not sleep, his mother only smiled and pulled him to her with a gentle paw. She licked behind his ear and purred, "Of course, of course…" to him over and over until he finally crossed into the dream-world. Despite his apprehensions of the following afternoon-which seemed to pass as slowly as snowmelt- Hushpad was indeed there to meet him when the Eye first appeared over the horizon. She came the day after, too… and the one after that. Through all of high summer they ran together, and danced and played. Friends watched them and said that this was no mere attraction, to be consummated and then ended when the young fela finally came into her season. Fritti and Hushpad seemed to have found a deeper congruency, which might ripen later into a joining-a thing rarely seen, especially among the younger Folk.

Tailchaser was picking his way through the litter of the dwellings of the Big Ones, in the fragmented darkness of Final Dancing. He had spent the night roaming the woods with Hushpad, and as usual his thoughts lingered with the young fela.

He was struggling with something, but did not know what it was. He cared for Hushpad-more than for any of his friends, or even his siblings-but her companionship was somehow different from the others': the sight of her tail twining delicately behind her as she sat, or held delicately upright when she walked, tickled a part of his imaginings he could not put a name to.

Deep in these deliberations, for a long while he did not heed the message that the wind carried. When the fear-smell finally reached his pondering, puzzling mind he started with sudden alarm and shook his head from side to side. His whiskers were tingling.

He leaped forward, galloping toward home; toward his nest. He seemed to hear terror-cries of the Folk, but the air was still and quiet.