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Without another word, you put pencil to paper once more. Of all the names you had been considering, one stuck out as the simplest and most fitting to you. You gave your friend a small headline above the notes you'd written out about her.
<span class="mu-s">Mary, First of <span class="mu-i">Fulvis Khrysómallon.</span></span>
Your newly-christened companion soon began to sniff your pencil, first trying to push it out of your hand before resolving to simply chew on its ends. It took more than you'd anticipated to free your pencil from her grasp. No wonder she could eat that nutberry so easily-- her biting force seemed to be greater than even your old farm dog's!
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The sun was setting.
You'd spent your entire day on this wonderful project of yours. By the time it was getting hard to see what you wrote, you knew it was time to wrap things up. It was a shame-- you felt you could do this forever, and be happy while doing it. Nonetheless, you needed sleep. You took to your feet and started towards home.
Throughout all of that time, you'd found very little of note in the river. That was a slight disappointment, but more than made-up for by Mary's company. Your strange sheep seemed to learn its new name rather quickly, visibly reacting by the fifth or sixth time you addressed her by the moniker, even learning to tie certain words to certain actions through little more than observation of your own behavior.
At points, your studies almost seemed to be mutual-- with every stroke of your pencil and measurement of her capabilities, she'd begin to understand something nearby you would refer to or what you wanted her to do. She seemed especially recipient towards commands of any sort, especially those involving some form of physical movement, but you only figured this out when you asked her to stop chewing your pencil for the fourth time that night.
She was certainly still some kind of animal... but, if she was, she was the smartest you'd ever seen. Was she alone in this kind of intellect? If the other creatures could share similar levels of power, was there anything stopping them from sharing a similar level of intellect?
"Good evening, Walter."
