The Teller of Small Fortunes

by Julie Leong

Familiarity could look very much like love from a certain angle, if one didn’t look too hard.

“Politics,” grunted Mash. “Easy to blame foreign folk for anything going wrong, when they’re not here to say otherwise. Easier still when they look and talk funny, and don’t pray to the Mother or her Sons.”

“There’s worse things than loneliness in this world,” said Tao quietly.

“All cats are slightly magical, don’t you know? It’s why they’re so smug all the time.

“I think you have changed,” said Tao. “In enough small ways that you just don’t quite notice it while it’s happening, but then you look in the mirror one day, and you’re altogether different.

“I have learned, in my many years, that doing what’s right may not always feel good. But I’ve found that if I ask myself not who will gain what from my action or inaction, but who will suffer—how many, and how much—my choice becomes clear.

There’s no such thing as greater good—there’s just good, and the more of it we can do, the better.”