# Riya Sair — Short Fiction character guide

> Riya Sair in Short Fiction by Algis Budrys.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Riya

**First appearance:** 0000-riya-s-foundling

## Snapshot

An aging, telepathic herd-beast who has crossed the gray mountains in desperate hope of a calf, only to meet a small boy who smells like one.

## Who they are

Riya Sair is a massive, herbivorous creature of the old range, spurned by every male of her kind and willing to risk death among the resentful wild dams for one last chance to be a mother. Her telepathic instinct to nuzzle and enfold a child collides with Phildee's alien, recoiling mind, leaving her floundering between maternal certainty and total incomprehension. That mismatch — her soft mental caress meeting his cause-and-effect universe — is the hinge on which their strange bond, and the story's opening, turns.

## Relationships

### [Phildee](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_2_se/characters/phildee)

_romantic_

Phildee and Riya Sair share a romantic connection, with frequent intimate or charged interactions.

## In the story

### [Riya's Foundling](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_2_se/chapters/riya-s-foundling)

An elderly alien female who adopts Phildee as her calf, overcoming her shame and loneliness.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_2_se/characters/riya_sair
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_2_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_2_se/characters