I live in a giant caldera, a vast old volcanic crater, now full of lakes and warm springs. Beyond are cold mountains. I'm a vesta, a caribou-like guardian of the valley, golden-horned and violet-eyed.

My human friend, Lindsay, visits. She likes my long winter fur and velvet nose, and pets me until I'm hot. Then she wants me to lick her all over, until she comes. I lick and snuffle, enjoying her salt, and her scent, and the little cries...

But then, when I'm all big and ready to mate... she won't let me climb on her, or lick me back! She says she loves a human man, and wants to be faithful to him! She tells me "He and I are an ideal couple." This, with her hands stroking my flanks, and my nose up her dress! But she has a double standard--he's a man, and I'm just a talking animal. She says "I wish you two could be friends. Jealous? Why should you feel jealous?"

Because I want you and you use me, maybe? I don't say it, just think it and look at her with one violet, dark eye. An eye that can't lie.

She adds, though I haven't said a word: "But you're not a man--he is."

I decide I've had enough of Lindsay.

I climb up the high crags like a mountain goat, scouting a way out of this crater I'm in. But wildlife researchers and game management officials follow me, hunt me. At last I turn and do a little hunting myself. Catch and challenge a low-ranking scientist: "If I can beat you at riddles, you must give me the key out." He agrees, knowing that animals don't grasp science. But I rattle off the answers to every riddle he tries. He didn't recall that the powers of a vesta are speed, agility, intelligence... and clairvoyance! What I missed out on, by not going to human school, I pick from his own mind. His pride flattened, and a bit scared of my horns, he reluctantly pulls out the Key and hangs it around my neck.

Triumphantly I clop up to the pass and use the Key. But I'm spotted and chased away from the Gate! Hunted again! I felt smug and took my time, now I'm paying for it. I flee up to the highest crag. The hunters can't climb it, but they've trapped me.

I don't want to fight to the death. And I won't go back. What, then? Well, they're scientists, so...

I argue.

"I was promised free passage if I could answer riddles you thought I never could. Why are you chasing me? I earned the right to this key and you have to admit it..." trying to get them to disagree... because if they challenge me, I've got them hooked. The moment they acknowledge me at all, I'm bound to win.

And get out of this no-win valley.

• Vesta, riddles = the Vesta are guardian creatures of the northern woods, in Patricia McKillip's THE RIDDLEMASTER OF HED. A few wizards can learn to become vesta--through great effort. Succeeding in such a transformation proves great power--and bestows equal responsibility.
• Warning! The real Lindsay is using me as an interim friend, till a 'real' man comes along. And my standards are low after Kay abused me--I've been grateful for any attention at all. But don't be used!
• Scientists and administrators = leaders of the psychodrama groups I've been attending! I feel patronized there; they act like I'm a coward or inhibited because I don't like to fight--when I'm physically fragile due to llness. The scientists are also like my dad, who's a secular rationalist. He believes in religious freedom, but he dismisses me and my sisters' dreams and psychic experiences as superstitious nonsense...
• Humans underestimate my intelligence = I was a child prodigy, and lately I've been reading books on kids like me, over 180 IQ. We're as different from the typical gifted kid as the gifted are from average... but we're so rare that adults pigeonhole us as "gifted"--the nearest label they have. But it's like calling an articulate, telepathic vesta an animal... or a quasar a nova. (A simile only the gifted will get, but that's the point, isn't it?)

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