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"Please..." she begs. "Ari won't say anything, but she's really worried about him. She doesn't want Mama and Daddy to know she's sweet on him. I told her he's a big old lizard compared to her but she only laughed at me, said big old lizards can be really nice sometimes."

She winks at kero and grins. "Just don't tell her I told you, okay. That was a brother/sister secret... promise?"

She giggles and kisses his cheek. "Thanks, Kero. Sometimes secrets get hard to keep. They want to burst from me like bubbles... I'm glad you're here to hear them. It helps."

"Secrets? Did someone mention secrets?" laughs Ai as they walk into the kitchen.

Mara laughs and shakes her head. "Nope... none I'd tell you anyway." she teases back. "You always tell Daddy and it'd would be no secret then at all 'cause he tells everyone."

"Hey...." grumbles Bez testily, but he's smiling so Kero knows he isn't mad.

Ai laughs again and gives her a hug. "That he does... silly man that he is... he opens his mouth and out they come. Feeling better, baby?"

"I'm not a baby anymore, Mama." grumbles Mara hugging him back.

"Ah, but you will always be my babies, both of you." he replies pouring them each a mug of warm milk seasoned with cinnamon and other spices.

Ari shakes her head. "Mama said you are some important person in the Void. Said that was like a place that is between all things. Didn't make much sense, but he said you'd have to explain it because although he understood and knew what it was, he'd just confuse the heck out of us."

Ari rolls her eyes. "I'm right here, Kero. You are talking to me, remember?" she quips with a laugh as she and Mara pull up a stool and join him.

*It was Ari who made that reply, silly cat, not her sister... stare *

Mara frowns but says nothing, while Ari merely waits for him to continue. Somethings she has learned you need to take at face value. You may not understand them... like how their Mama is no longer a lion or why was he more male than female... but she knew this was so. It wasn't like that in the books they had read, but for them it simply the way things were.

So she asks him how anything can exist between two things if they sit side by side.

Now she is very confused. "But Daddy said the planes lie one upon the other like a cake in places and some actually sit inside another one or overlap. I don't understand."

"Many realms overlap, Kitten." says Bez quietly. "Or intersect. It's kind of like that interlocking ring pattern your Mama liked to carve into the stones of his garden... you know the one with the three circles, that he used to explain something about the all-father with?"

She nods hesitantly. "Okay, but how can he exist inbetween things then?"

Ai sits down and spreads his hands. "It's a conundrum of sorts but it's kind of like this... there is a law in physics that states for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction... if you take two exact beams of light and shine them exactly at each other there will be a point in the middle where they cancel each other out. Kero's realm is at that spot."

"Wow..." mutters Ari in amazement. "How did you learn that?"

"I'm a light mage, remember?" laugh Ai merrily.