A small furry head peaked out from under the eaves, ears twitching.

Yoor held his breath. Cautiously, he let a slow trail of golden stars float upward.

Round-eyed, the wrollic watched them glide past. Then, quick as lightning, he jumped and snatched one out of the air, golden gleam clutched to his chest as he spiraled down, free-falling in a series of summersaults and pirouettes. A whirl of bushy tail, a quick dart up the wall, and the wrollic had disappeared onto the roof again, spark in hand.

Yoor stared. "That's impossible."

"I see too!" Som proclaimed. "He catch star."

"But you can't." Yoor's voice was nearly inaudible. "It's an illusion. No one can grab a mirage."

A cackle came from the thatch. Dark round eyes shone down at Yoor.

Yoor bit his lip. He raised a hand to his heart and bowed, his words a whisper of awe, of disbelief, of wonder. "Who are you?"

Yoor glanced up. He barely dared to breathe. "Have you come to teach me? To show me something I have failed to see all my life?"

The wrollic laughed lightly, kissed the star and danced away over the ridge.

* * *

Manaam was leaning against an intricately carved pillar in his parlor, his hands playing with an ink brush, lazily twirling it this way and that. He raised his eyes to Cahuan, a wry smile on his face. "I have sought legal counsel," Manaam said. "And found a way to create an institution to hold all the snuggeries."

He pushed himself off the pillar and walked a few steps into the room. "It would be modeled after the healing bags. So I call it the snuggery bag. The main idea is that whoever contributes funds will pay into that bag. This way the coin will not be given to an individual caretaker or child, but will be contributed to the overall cause, the support of poor children in Shebbetin. The funds in the bag must be spent for that purpose and nothing else."

He painted an invisible sign onto his palm with the brush. "However, how exactly that purpose is best served, how the coin is to be spent, will be decided quite freely by the holder of the bag. Which will be you, I suggest."

He laid the brush down on the desk before Cahuan and kept his lashes lowered as he spoke. "How does that sound?"

Cahuan stood very still, her gaze resting on Manaam.

When she spoke, her voice was soft. "I thought you said you were not going to do it?"

Manaam blushed. He turned away abruptly. "I did not really do it, you know. I did not truly give up my position, or my wealth. Only very little."

He glanced back over his shoulder. "But, yes. You will have a stronger stance, more independence, more autonomy. With respect to both me and any new donors."

Cahuan took a step toward Manaam, and another, until she had closed the distance between them. She reached up, placing her hand at the back of his head and pulling him in, meeting his lips in a kiss, gentle and tender at first, then warm and full. When she drew back, there was a spark of sungold in her deep green eyes. But her voice was calm and professional. "I think it sounds very good."

Manaam looked flushed and a little disheveled, with a decidedly lopsided smile on his face.

"Ah," he said. "I am glad to hear."

Somehow they had made it up to Manaam's bedroom yet again. And to a joint celebration of sensuality. Cahuan lay curled up around Manaam's legs while he sat up on the mat to feed them both with bits of fruit. Cahuan watched the shawl around his shoulders slip time and again with his movements, affording her the pleasure of glimpsing different parts of his naked body every time.

She hummed contentedly. "Is this going to become a habit, then?"

Manaam laughed. "Maybe. I admit it has come to look like one recently." He let another berry be kissed out from between his fingers. "But your life is full of love anyway, isn't it?"

Cahuan cradled his knee. "It is. But it certainly isn't full of lovemaking. Lhut and I can go to Kaya, but we don't do that very often. And whenever I kiss anyone in the Snuggery, some of the little ones instantly recognize the signs of tenderness and come close to get their share. And of course I include them. So I soon end up in a group hug with a heap of children, which is very nice and very loving, but also the definite end to any erotic twosome I might have envisaged."

Manaam grinned. Cahuan snorted, but then joined him, smiling along ruefully, but happily. She sat up to snuggle into his arms.

Manaam gently rubbed his cheek against hers. "You are full of love, either way," he said in a low voice. "And you have always represented truth to me. True affection, true friendship. But truth, also, in other things. Truth for what we all need here. Justice, or love again, in society." He pulled her close to his chest, resting his head on hers. He toyed with the strands of hair on her back, gazing straight ahead into nothingness.

"Not truth, perhaps, after all," he said after a while. "Perhaps it is not truth you represent to me. But rather... an ideal." He breathed a kiss onto an earlobe of green and gold. "An ideal of how things should be. Of how we should be with each other. Of how, of who, I should be."

A crooked grin stole into his face. "And that is where it gets uncomfortable." He ran his hand down her spine. "Not just with the ideal version of my self, which I do not correspond to. Or not entirely, anyway. But it's the same with everything else. You give me the inspiration, the guiding star. You give me both the direction and the motivation to go. Whenever I see you, I wish to make everything better, and to be better too. But I am unable. There is only so much I can do. And when I feel powerless to move, I don't want to be unhappy with where I am. It is too exhausting. I could not keep it up."

Manaam dropped his gaze and buried his cheek in the palm of Cahuan's hand. "Perhaps that is another reason why I did not meet you all that often in the past. It is too taxing to be reminded of the ideal all the time. I need rest. When I cannot bring change, I need to be at peace with things as they are. Even if they are very wrong."

Cahuan's eyes were dark. She pushed a lock of hair from Manaam's brow, tenderly touching his skin.

"I love you."

Manaam almost snorted. He shook his head with a little laugh. "Cahuan!" He pulled her close, still shaking his head. "What sort of a reply is that?"

Cahuan smiled into his shoulder. "Truth?" she suggested. "Even if not ideal, it seems."

Manaam gave another little laugh. He cradled her warmly in his arms, burying his fingers in her seaweed hair. He rubbed his cheek gently against her head.

"Maybe it is ideal, even," he said softly. "You may have hit at the very core of the question. Or of the answer."